Gender-based
violence, particularly wife battering, continues to be a challenge in The
Gambia, despite efforts by the government and civil society organisations.
Numerous
research reports, including the 2013 Gambia Demographic and Health Survey, said
wife battering remains a challenge due to the culture of silence, fear of
reprisal, unequal power relations, and undue pressure from family and friends,
especially if the perpetrator is a family member.
But
why must one beat his wife? What must warrant such beating? Our reporter, Kaddijatou Jawo, was out and
about to have a random discussion with married men and women on the subject.
Fatou
Manneh, 35, a resident of Lamin Sanchaba, said she was once beaten by her
husband, and she knows that it is not correct for one to beat his wife, because
it can lead to injuries and other health complications on her body.
Similar
views were shared by Isatou Cham, 52, from Busumbala, who said “wife battering
is unlawful, even in Islam”.
“But
if you are to beat your wife, there must be a strong justification for you to
do so,” she added.
However,
according to 27-year-old Bintou Fatty, also from Busumbala, any man who loves
his wife will not beat her.
She
said she was once beaten by her husband upon a misunderstanding over some
financial issues.
For
Awa Ceesay, men can beat their wives for going out without their permission and
for disobeying them.
Similarly,
Mariama Manneh, a 28-year-old in Kunkujang, said husbands can beat their wives
if the women failed to adhere to what the men told them.
Twenty-year-old
Mariama Janneh said sometimes wife battering is normally the fault of the wife,
not the husband.
“If
you disrespect your husband or refused anything he told you to do, he will beat
you,” she said.
On
the other side, Samba Banja, a 60-year-old man, said he has been married for 35
years, but only beat his wife twice and “even that was due to some
misunderstanding”.
“But
we hardly have any problems nowadays, because we understand and respect each
other,” he said.
Ceesaynding
Kujabi, 45, said most of the time, it is the fault of the wife to be beaten,
but men are used as the scapegoats, “that is what people failed to understand”.
“When
you have certain women as wife, you can continue beating them until you are
tired, but they will continue to do bad things every day,” he said.
“If
you don’t beat, but divorce them all the time, people will say that you are not
a good man. So the only solution for you
is to stick to her and continue to beat her until she sees things for herself.”
Some
of the men said in the past, when you beat your wife, she will just cry in her
heart and let it go; but now when a man wants to beat his wife the woman will
say: “If you dare lay your hands on me, you will see what will happen to
you”.